University of Colorado at Colorado Springs researchers have developed Vaulted Voice Verification, an approach to voice identification that can be used for voice biometrics in mobile phone-type security systems. Voice biometrics has limitations in that people’s voices can change dramatically when they are ill or in a hurry, and it is relatively easy to record a voice during authentication and use it to break the system. The researchers’ approach has users set up accounts by recording a large number of words and phrases, which would be sent in encrypted form to a bank and would serve as a template for verifying the user. Rather than have the bank’s server ask for and transmit voice data, the bank sends two encrypted versions of each word or phrase to a mobile phone, one being in the user’s voice and the other spoken by a different person. The software on the mobile phone compares the user’s voice with both files and decides which one is authentic, then sends back the answers instead of transmitting the voice recording. The researchers say Vaulted Voice Verification provides secure authentication and preserves the privacy of the user.